England and Ireland - finale

  Cadiz, Spain
Sunday, April 11, 2004

The last I wrote I was in Dublin after having done the six day north tour. I had a few days in Dublin before returning to England so went and saw some of the sites I had missed previously - museums, Book of Kells. Sunday I rang up mi amiga de Mexico, Marcela, who decided to stay in Ireland and look for work (I met her in Kilkenny) and we went for a night out at the pubs...it was a fun evening. The next day, I took my camera to the warranty place - their tech was out for the week and they said they'd ship it back to me (but only in Ireland). I have to figure out what to do about that still. I need to call them and check on the status too. Marcela and I had dinner that night and said our goodbyes. After dinner I went and saw Grant Lee Phillips (folk rock singer). He always puts on a great show - he's got lots of energy and tells lots of stories and such between songs.

I flew out of Dublin to Liverpool on April 6 and caught trains to Conwy (in Wales). It´s a cool little town with a castle and medieval wall around it. I stayed in a B&B there - it´s nice to get your own room now and then. The next day I took buses around the Snowdonia region to Caernarfon (another city with cool castle and medieval walls) and by Mt Snowdon. While walking along in Caernarfon, I glanced and saw what I thought said "Clown Court". I thought it would be pretty cool to see some clowns on trial, but when I looked again the sign really said "Crown Court"...much to my dismay. The scenery around Mt Snowdon is pretty and I hiked around a little. I continued riding the buses and went in a loop journey ending back in Conwy. (While doing this part I really missed having my digital camera ´cuz I would´ve taken sooooo many more pics than I did with my disposable.)

Conwy Castle

Thursday I went by train to Chester and met up with some of Jayne´s friends at the train station (though they were late) to share a cab to the hotel. We had to make a mad rush of getting ready for the wedding (only had about 20 min). The wedding was nice. One odd thing was a registrar who sat behind a table during the entire ceremony and wrote things on various papers...she didn´t look happy. After the ceremony, we went to the hotel lobby for drinks. Dinner was a bit later and very good. There was another break while the room was changed around then we came back in for drinks and dancing. Of course, when the Bee Gee´s were played that got the best crowd participation. :) I got free drinks most the night from various people I met when they found out I was traveling from outside the country...that was great! We stayed up kind of late dancing. Others continued having drinks by the lobby, but I went to bed.

Tom, Jayne and Paul

The next day was spent chilling out around the hotel for a while (it´s far away from town with nothing nearby...you´re kinda trapped w/o a vehicle). Paul´s friend, Neil, and I went to the driving range to hit some golf balls. Back at the hotel we joined others for drinks and then had lunch before making out way to the Farndon Arms hotel/pub. Jayne, Paul and their friends made it and we all hung out and had drinks, dinner and more drinks ´til they started kicking everybody out at 11pm. I had a room there for the night and went to bed early since I had to be awake REALLY early. The next day´s events will be recounted in the next update (it´s my flight to Spain).

Oh, the cold is better now. Pretty much within a couple days of leaving Ireland it started to clear up.

The 7 weeks I spent around the UK & Ireland were fun, but I was ready to move on when it was all done. I think the highlight would be the Scotland tour - great scenery, great group. Wales was an unexpected really nice area too - cool towns with castles, pretty outdoors, nice people...I'd definitely recommend it to others. The low point would be my digicam no longer working. Keep checking back as I make my way around mainland Europe...